Melody's First Audition.

So my manager calls me in the morning to let me know I have a callback for a commercial in a few hours. I was just cast in a play and today we begin rehearsal, but thankfully the audition is close enough for me to drop by on my lunch break. It’s not until I’m all signed in and waiting to audition, casually observing the room like I do, when my commercial agent calls and says “Listen, they’ve made a last minute change. They want to see real couples only. Can you come back with your wife before 6?” “Sure,” I tell her, anything but that. I can only imagine Melody’s reaction to seeing my text:

“Don’t go to gym. They want you to audition with me! Meet me 14^th st btwn 9/10th av by 5:50”

I bolt back to rehearsal with just enough time to both inhale a salad and ask my director how he’d feel about me leaving 30 minutes early on our first day of rehearsal. He shakes his head and mumbles some words which I can’t make out into an answer. As if I weren’t uncomfortable enough with kale lodged in my chest…

Outside the station, I eventually spot Melody in the post-work rush. It doesn’t take more than a moment to recognize that look on her face. “You’re making me super anxious,” she says. I try to say something reassuring but everything I say is so fraught with my own nerves it does no good. I’m nervous for her. I’m nervous for myself; I don’t know what to expect either. “We don’t have to do this,” I tell her. “Oh,” she replies with that look,” we don’t?” I shrug and we keep walking.

The audition is all interview. The guy asks us how we’d met, which is all we need to go off about all the plot twists in our story, nearly busting a move in the room to illustrate how bangin’ the wedding was. Some ladies in the back laugh along staring at us on a screen. By the time we leave the building Melody’s entire demeanor has changed. “You’ve just got to let it go,” she tells me. “You do your work, and you let it go.” “Is that how it is, huh? Look at you.” “I know,” she says, “my first audition’s for a national commercial—a callback, a callback—and I don’t even have an agent. Try not to be jealous.”